Verdict in UGA fire: Not guilty

Jury acquits homeless man charged with setting blaze at Main Library

Posted: Friday, April 29, 2005

By Joe Johnsonjoe.johnson@onlineathens.com

A Clarke County Superior Court jury acquitted a 20-year-old homeless man Thursday on charges he intentionally set a fire that caused about $17 million in damages to the University of Georgia's Main Library nearly two years ago.

After a week-long trial involving dozens of witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, a jury of eight women and four men deliberated about eight hours Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning before finding Jason Nelms not guilty on two counts of first-degree arson.

Jury forewoman Brenda Crumley said fellow panelists voted to acquit mainly because the prosecution presented no physical evidence connecting Nelms to the July 23, 2003, fire that heavily damaged the library's second floor and sent smoke through the rest of the building.

"We just felt there wasn't enough evidence that placed him there at the time of the fire," Crumley said.

The acquittal came despite videotaped interviews in which Nelms first told police he was never at the fire scene and later admitted he accidentally set the fire when he went to the second floor to smoke a cigarette, discarded a match and started a fire he couldn't put out.

Crumley also said some jurors didn't believe Nelms' statements to police because they thought the comments were coerced by investigators who threatened to arrest Nelms for lying.

Another juror, Tommy Brightwell, said he believes police exploited Nelms' homelessness to exact a false confession.

"The boy was homeless, and they said they'd give him food, mentioned a $10,000 reward, and then an officer began yelling and cussing at the boy that he did it," Brightwell said. "When you're homeless like that and someone said they're going to give you food and money, you'll tell them anything they want to hear."

After he heard the verdict, Nelms sat expressionless for a while. As the realization appeared to dawn that he would be set free after nearly two years in jail, he smiled broadly and started an animated conversation with defense co-counsel Harry Gordon.

When Judge David Sweat told Nelms that he would be set free, Nelms asked, "Immediately released?"

Sweat explained Nelms first would return to the Clarke County Jail, where he'd been held without bond since July 29, 2003, to retrieve his belongings.

Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ken Mauldin stopped short of saying he disagreed with the jury's decision.

"I've always had and will continue to have great faith in the jury system, and I sincerely respect the verdict of this jury," Mauldin said. "I think the real issue had always been whether the statements (Nelms) gave to police were voluntary, but there was sufficient evidence to go forward with the case and to make an arrest."

Mauldin told jurors the evidence showed Nelms harbored a fascination with fire, gave conflicting statements to police, and even confessed to starting the library fire.

Although Nelms told police in a videotaped interview he set the fire by accident when discarding a match on the library's second floor, Mauldin argued that Nelms unsuccessfully tried to start fires in at least two other spots until he found a stack of cardboard boxes he could set ablaze.

If found guilty, Nelms could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Lead defense attorney Gerald Brown did not mount a defense because he said prosecutors never proved how the fire started.

"As I said in court, first of all I don't know if it was or if it was not an arson," Brown said. "There was nothing to connect Mr. Nelms to the fire, and anything he said about the fire was the product of numerous threats (by police) and assurances that if it was an accident it would be OK."

During the trial, Brown tried to create doubt that the fire was an arson. He referred to a prosecution witness, a UGA employee, who testified that false alarms at the North Campus library were not uncommon, due to electrical shorts and for other reasons.

Though Nelms entered the Clarke County Jail as a homeless person, he would leave Thursday to return to his home, Brown said.

"I called his family to make sure they'd be picking him up, and they told me he'd be going home to his family's house in Oglethorpe County," Brown said.